Painter, educator, and Civil Rights activist Mary Lovelace O’Neal died on May 10. Lovelace O’Neal was perhaps best known for her Lampblack paintings, which are insistent declarations of Blackness and presence in spaces where Black families and women have historically not been welcome.

Austrian artist Valie Export, a powerfully provocative yet playful force in feminist art, died on May 14. Her performances and filmed media works reclaimed the female body through guerrilla modes of delivery that bypassed institutional restrictions.

If Frieze New York feels like an assembly-line salad this year, then the Independent art fair feels like the assembly line.

This week’s art movements include the announcement of the new chief curator at Cooper Hewitt, the Getty grants $1.8M for Black visual art archives, and an artist’s cheeky plea on the High Line.

Brooklyn Creative Reuse, a new sustainable second-hand market for art materials in Industry City, might give Blick a run for its money while helping you save some of yours.

Instead of presenting a series of segmented gallery booths, the New York show Future Fair fosters connections between them.

"Frieze New York is an assembly-line salad," says Senior Editor Valentina Di Liscia.

Writer Aaron Short asks "How do the wealthy choose their art these days?" Peek inside TEFAF New York’s annual “wealth pageant," in Short's review.

Staff writer Rhea Nayyar explores the seemingly interchangeable tropes and trends present at the 12th annual New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) fair including vibrant kitsch, zany little sculptures, shiny stuff™, and lots of florals (in the spring? groundbreaking!). hyperallergic.com/between-trop...

Art critic Seph Rodney notes that though it’s smaller than previous editions, the contemporary African art fair 1-54 “draws our attention to works that are tactile, surprising, and alive with material expression.”

This week, we honor Swiss collector Bruno Bischofberger, discerning art critic Manuela Hoelterhoff , and champion of performance art Steven Durland.

Need a recap for the news this week? Check out our required reading list including artists’ antidote to AI slop, Kimberlé Crenshaw’s new memoir, New Orleans and climate change, an Art Deco train, and what do sex workers think about “Euphoria”?

At the exhibition “Sophie Rivera: Double Exposures,” writer Julia Curl notes that this survey of the late Nuyorican artist drives the viewer through wonder, horror, and laughter without necessarily leading one to acceptance.

In a surprise move, cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder’s Neue Galerie will merge with The Metropolitan Museum of Art down the street on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue. The rare merger will come into effect in 2028.

We asked 13 fairs to open up about booth pricing, and what they shared (and didn’t) revealed much about transparency and affordability in the art world.

Art critic Ed Simon likens the new 22-foot-tall golden statue of Donald Trump to idolatry, despite insistence from others such as televangelist Mark Burns that the gold-leafed statue raising a triumphant fist, is “not a golden calf.”

Artist Maia Chao will activate the Whitney’s seventh-floor galleries with her performance “Being Moved” as part of the museum’s 2026 Biennial, pressing on the idea of art as a catalyst for change, and on the museum as a stage for that possibility.

The fourth-annual Ridgewood Open Studios drew hundreds to explore the neighborhood’s art scene, including hidden alcoves in converted factories, basement spaces teeming with sculptures, and printmaking workshops in playgrounds.

IDF official portraits show Israeli soldiers turning their backs on the camera, ostensibly to protect them from prosecution for war crimes. The gesture is a tacit admission of guilt, says writer Ido Nahari.

Opening May 16, “Our Friend, Jean,” is an intimate collection of art and ephemera from the precipice of Basquiat’s career explosion. This exhibition returns to Brooklyn after traveling to six historically Black colleges and universities — a major first for Basquiat’s work.

Archaeologists excavating at an ancient Egyptian city announced the discovery of a papyrus containing lines from Homer’s Iliad buried with a Roman-era mummy, confirming that Homer was indeed everywhere in the ancient Mediterranean.

Excerpt from our interview with Keith Mayerson, an artist known for his figurative cosmology of American identity, activist history, and popular culture. Hyperallergic: How did you begin your project “My American Dream,” and how would you describe a project representing your personal heroes?

Trump posited the idea of painting over the Eisenhower Building in a Fox News interview last November. Over 2,000 concerned citizens, architects, and preservationists are warning of permanent damage to the structure.

You know Mozart’s music — but what do you know about his life? A new exhibition at NYC’s Morgan Library has the answers, guiding visitors through the life and career of the virtuoso via art and well-preserved ephemera.

Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian interviews Dayanita Singh about her independently funded exhibition ARCHIVIO on view at the State Archives of Venice. This is the first time in its history that the archive has opened its doors to the public to showcase an art exhibition.

What exactly is an Artist Corporation, and should you start one? Paddy Johnson has your back, explaining this new type of business structure that was in a bill introduced in the Colorado state legislature.

Francisco de Zurbarán is being highlighted at London’s National Gallery. Though many of these included works are religious scenes, art critic Michael Glover wonders, “was Zurbarán a pious man? Does belief actually make a difference in how well you paint?” Glover ponders this in his review.

The annual LA art book fair Printed Matter unearthed and remixed historical media, collapsing time and giving the past new relevance.

As Somalia’s first-ever national pavilion debuts at the 61st Venice Biennale, some local cultural organizations say they were not “meaningfully consulted” or “included” in the selection process for the exhibition.

The new documentary “Maintenance Artist” traces Mierle Laderman Ukeles’s decades-long practice of spotlighting marginal, unpaid, and feminine labor. The film offers “an easily digestible biography to spread the word about Ukeles,” says art critic Dan Schindel.

Arcade games at the…DC War Memorial? The anonymous artist collective Secret Handshake installed three arcade cabinets as part of the latest anti-Trump protest.

Mary Frank has long deserved to have her work celebrated by a New York museum, says art critic John Yau. At 93, she is still waiting. In his latest review, Yau delves into Frank’s multi-genre work to explain why.

Brenda Zlamany returns to her ancestral village near the Pollino National Park in Italy, where she paints in an old sausage factory and grows her own olives.

As the Venice Biennale opened its doors to the public, almost half of the artists in the international exhibition plus 22 national pavilions issued their withdrawal from awards consideration in solidarity with the jury’s resignation.

After visiting the “Keith Haring” exhibition at the Brant Foundation, art critic Arthur Nersesian noted that the artist’s “free-handed style…feels prescient in light of the upcoming AI cataclysm.”

At the Venice Biennale, artists paid tribute to Koyo Kouoh, the late curator of the main exhibition “In Minor Keys.” Led by Cuban artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, writers, and musicians, the poetry caravan moved across seven locations in the Giardini.

Artists Yun Choi, Alison Kuo, and Korakrit Arunanondchai will take up residence in the New Museum’s Artist Studio, a dedicated space carved out by the polarizing OMA-designed expansion of the building. Read up on other movements in the art world:

In honor of Mother’s Day, Hyperallergic asked artists to share the best piece of advice that they ever received from their mother, or a maternal figure in their life.

“The Christophers,” a new film about an unlikely friendship between an artist and a forger, “is a twisty, delightful yet profound comedy that encouraged me to question my own relationship to art,” says art critic Erin L. Thompson.

My report for @hyperallergic.com on the gull that set up her nest in the Giardini at the Venice Biennale.

In our required reading for this week, Mamdani honors garment workers, a fake exchange with Sophie Calle, the first Black American tattoo artist, RIP Spirit Airlines, and more.

The deadline to apply for the 2026 Craft Archive Fellowship is fast approaching! If you’re interested in a $5,000 fellowship to research nondominant craft histories in the United States, apply today.

The 61st Venice Biennale may be marked by various protests — but the heart of the biennial art olympics — the international exhibition — beats on. Editor-at-Large Hrag Vartanian calls Koyo Kouoh’s “In Minor Keys” “an unexpected symphony that asks us to ponder what may otherwise be overlooked.”

Angels, planets, and bodies recur throughout the “Aurora consurgens,” a 15th-century alchemical manuscript, as allegories for interior conditions. The black angel illustrated in its pages is not an isolated curiosity, but part of a larger visual system devoted to becoming perfection.

Workers at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City joined three dozen UAW Local 2110 organizers to picket the museum’s annual gala, demanding higher wages and better benefits.

Dozens of police officers blocked the entrance to the Venice Biennale’s Arsenale during a historic march and labor strike for Palestine today, May 8. A tense standoff ensued when protesters attempted to enter the Arsenale, where the Israeli Pavilion is located.

HAPPENING NOW: Thousands march on Via Garibaldi to the Arsenale as part of a massive protest timed with today’s historic Venice Biennale strike. The 24-hour labor pause for Palestine and workers’ rights is the first cultural strike in the biennale’s 131-year history.

Upstate New York is blooming this month — with flowers and art! We’ve outlined our top 10 exhibitions to see this May, from Japanese woodblock prints at Vassar College to an investigation into the exploitation of Mexico's natural resources at Art Omi.

Calligraphy offers a clear point of entry to Islamic futurism. Long before the term circulated widely online, Sudanese modernist painter Ibrahim El-Salahi was already asking what that script could become.

This month, Los Angeles is brimming with overdue retrospectives of influential artists and illuminating showcases of previously unseen work. Here’s a list of our Top 10 must-see shows in the City of Angels.